Celebrity couplings are the staple of gossip magazines. It’s easy to dismiss them as fluff and prattle, but they can actually teach us a thing or two about relationships. Be warned: if at any stage you recognise your partner in any of these examples, then your relationship is in serious trouble.

Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke: Uma Thurman’s career is based upon her good looks. Her first husband, Gary Oldman, blamed their divorce on “the difficulty of being married to Venus.” Given his acknowledgement of her beauty one wonders why husband number two, Ethan Hawke, said, “I’m married to someone meant to be one of the most beautiful women on the planet but even she doesn’t look like what you see on magazine covers.”

What? Dissing your wife in public and attributing her beauty to Photoshop was never going to end well. Shortly after, Hawke ran off with the nanny and Thurman found solace in the arms of Elle Mcpherson’s mega-rich cast off.

Lesson 1: Never confess to the entire world that you don’t think your wife is beautiful.

Megan Gale and Andy Lee: Australian audiences will be familiar with the comic radio duo Hamish and Andy. Supermodel Megan Gale was Andy’s partner off air for several years. The relationship was doomed when Gale began showing off her dress for the Melbourne Cup during a national television interview. She twirled and winked at the camera. What did Andy do? He stood behind and mimicked her twirl right down to the camera winking. Sure enough, the couple split soon after. Andy remained part of the radio duo and Megan left her contract with David Jones and disappeared into obscurity.

Lesson Two: Don’t mimic your supermodel girlfriend when she is only doing her job. Does she turn up to your radio station and take the piss out of you?

Russell Brand and Katy Perry. Ah yes, the pairing of the reformed drug taking, womanising Russell Brand and the singing superstar Katy Perry. Any guy that truly loves and respects his wife does not tweet her picture as she wakes in the morning looking like a bleary eyed animal, caught in headlights and about to become roadkill. Perry divorced the puerile comedian and her Pentecostical parents still thank the Lord for ejecting their heathen son-in-law from family Thanksgiving celebrations.

Lesson Three: The words “Russell Brand” and “marriage” should never appear together in spoken or written language. Any language.

Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson: It is always going to end badly when your husband says you look ugly without makeup and the boob jobs. In fact, just like Ethan Hawke, he admitted his wife wasn’t all that hot after all.

Lesson Four: What do you expect from a drummer?

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. Alright, we already knew that the 17 – year age difference was going to be a problem for her, maybe not so much for him. After all, there is only so long that a woman in her 40s can hang on to a man in his 20s. The party was over when he tweeted a picture of Moore’s shapely bottom in a white bikini as she bent over in the shower. Although he tagged it with the line “it doesn’t get better than this,” it might have saved the marriage if he’d tweeted a flattering picture of her face instead. Kutcher ended up in a jacuzzi with a cute blonde before taking off with Mila Kunis and Demi went to rehab. Need I say more?

Lesson Five: If you want to tweet your wife’s derriere maybe you should ask her first.

What can we take away from this cautionary tale? Never tweet, mock or discuss your wife’s looks in an interview. And never, under any circumstance, think Russell Brand is marriage material.